October 17, 2008 8:10 PM

Lehman Subpoenas: Erin Callan's Legal Hedge

Posted by Vivia Chen

We knew it wouldn't be long before white collar lawyers in New York got real busy. Last week, we reported that Lehman CEO Richard Fuld has hired Allen & Overy's Patricia Hynes to help him through his testimony before Congress.

Now comes news that federal prosecutors have subpoenaed 12 Lehman Brothers executives, including Fuld, in connection with three grand jury investigations into the investment bank's fall.

The 12 includes Lehman's erstwhile CFO, Erin Callan, 42, who was feted less than a year ago as one of Wall Street's most powerful (and glamorous) women. After getting booted from Lehman last summer for hedge fund short selling, Callan landed at Credit Suisse as head of its global hedge fund business in July. (Check out CNBC's three-and-a-half minute video on the rise and fall of Erin Callan, produced just before her departure from Lehman,  available here.)

She might have made it out of Lehman's, but she's not out of the woods.

We called around to see who Callan's white collar white knight is, and we've just learned it's Robert Cleary, a litigation partner at Proskauer Rose. We know he's a seasoned former U.S. attorney who served as the lead prosecutor in the Unabomber trial. What we don't know is how long he's been representing Callan. (Cleary did not return a call for comment.)

Callan herself is a lawyer: Before joining Lehman to work on global hedge funds, she was a tax associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Another Lehman/Simpson connection. Lehman, you might recall, is one of Simpson's longtime clients.

Like other top Lehman brass to be subpoenaed, Callan will likely rack up some hefty legal fees in the coming months. But we're not too worried about her finances. She still has her day job at Credit Suisse. What's more, she recently flipped her posh condo at 15 Central Park West for close to $12 million--a two-bedroom pad she paid a mere $6.48 million for just three years ago, according to Muckety.com. Now, that's a good hedge.

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